president, that it happened. and since then that model, called the mondale model, has been followed by most presidential nominees and most residential presidents in taking their vice presidents. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. >> military historian and one recounts the u.s. 15th air force of military exports during world war ii in europe, specifically begins attacks against not the initial facilities. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. -- specifically nazi and daschle facilities. >> good afternoon, everybody. i am barbara peters. it's sunday october 12, and i'm delighted to welcome act barrett tillman who is written over 40 books. most nonfiction but i know you've been here -- did you call write something with stephen cohen's? >> and harold coyle. >> were you kind of their

export? >> with steve i contributed the two original fiction anthologies at his request. steve has just been marvelous friend and colleague. in 1984 our mutual publisher sent me a manuscript written by vietnam war aviator called for each other, and the publisher asked my opinion. i said this book is so good, if you don't publish it, i will. and next year it was published in spite of the true. so steve and i have kept in touch ever since. and then the harold coyle trilogy was for tor forge. he came up with the concept of a foreign military contractor that does deny the work for the us government all over the world. that was a trilogy that was a fun change of pace for me because i hadn't been many

things in the thriller realm at that time. so that was an education. >> i'm sure it was. and you're a wonderful writer. i think your nonfiction reads with all the pulse of fiction and a thriller. you grew up flying airplanes? where did all this aviation background come from? >> i'm in eastern oregon ranch kid, grew up literally next to the family cropdusting strip in my little pity home town, population 950, in oregon. airplanes were always overhead, and that combined with the fact that my dad had been trained as a naval aviator in world war ii, and i was infected with the virus from infancy, so i was blessed, and i use that word advisedly. i was blessed to grow up being able to help restore vintage airplanes and fly them. and i guess overall, i've had between five and 600 hours

flying navy airplanes from the world war ii era. so that's been a tremendous benefit to me, both in history and fiction. >> i'm sure those of you who read barrett realize this is an cyclopean knowledge. speaking of which, i'm going to start talking about the first book, the d-day encyclopedia which i believe is an update, and probably if i worked this out right, taken right the soviet anniversary of the june 6, 1944 d-day landing? >> exactly right. originally the book was published for the 60th anniversary, and then i woke up one morning and realized, oh, my gosh, in 12 to 14 months we are going to have the next, the 70th anniversary. so eventually i wound up with regnery doing an update your

enemy difference between the original and this is that all of the dates were filled and. there are none of the historic figures still living now. >> i hadn't even thought about that. i was going to ask if there was new material that has come out from release of records from the kind of thing that would've changed some of the information that you had in the original version. >> i did expand upon a few of the entries. i know one had to do with intelligence from the allied side, and a couple of other entries were expanded on the basis of additional information. one of them had to do with the british and canadian navy participation. i found additional information on fat. this has been very well received. as an author it's always interesting to me to get feedback from my readers. because two of them who don't

know each other said this is a wonderful book because most of the entries are just the right length for bathroom reading. [laughter] spent it does make snappy reading. i started this yesterday. i won't say where i was sitting, but i did get in and out of it and what are the things i thought was fascinating. i was born in 1940 so i don't have any actual memories of the war or d-day, other than playing with my mothers food stamps and getting blasted for. my parents talked about many of these figures, you know, in the years after the war. and so reading those was a real, not just a refresher course, but the entries about all the personalities revealed names that you don't know when history, when you're living through it. it's different than when you go back. vietnam was my war. and now everybody and i think, why didn't i know any of that been? but you can't tell. one of the things i thought was

interesting in the encyclopedia was the personalities that you talk about. we had dwight eisenhower who was the supreme allied commander, and my question would be, was easy because he was a great general or was he there because he was a great outlet just ask, or even great at politics because he was good at politics. the conventional wisdom for many years after the war was that he was the one who altogether the alliance. and that's certainly an exaggeration but it's not as if the british and the french were going to take their balls and go home because they didn't like the fact that an american was the supreme commander. the other aspect was that since america provided the huge majority of the manpower for the liberation of northwestern europe, it was just a given that eisenhower or at least another

senior american would be the overall commander. but in fairness his primary subordinates, both were british, charles portal was the deputy commander, and then the head of the navy and the air campaigns also were british. so it was pretty much a balance between the anglo-americans. >> it was certainly operation overload by committee in a sense, that there were so many different components. you also talk about coming o of the great fondness for jimmy doolittle whose rivalry theater really was the pacific, right? but he did an awful lot in the european war. >> i was very fortunate to get to know general jimmy, as it likes to be called somewhat, and that will reflect later on, forgotten 15th. of course, he came to world prominence as opposed to national prominence with the

april 1942 bombing raid of tokyo and five other cities in that area, a daring concept launching our between engine bombers from an aircraft carrier. that aspect of it worked. it turned out that they had to launch a few hundred miles earlier than expected so all the planes except one ran out of fuel. but that brought an immediate promotion to then lieutenant colonel doolittle to brigadier general. he received the medal of honor and gives almost immediately sent to north africa late 1942 where he learned the general business running the north african allied air forces, and then the u.s. 12th air force. so by the time he came to italy in november of 43 to run the newly established 15th air force, he was very much a known

quantity cookie was only there two months before eisenhower recalled him to britain to take over the eighth air force for the run of the d-day. >> which, of course, had its problems in the sense that the weather didn't cooperate with the air strategy for d-day. you have very low cloud cover and the bombers actually ended up being too far back to really protect the people. >> right. the air plan that i found in the air force archives shows the normandy coast running mostly east-west, and the heavy bombers based in britain just 30 miles away, were approaching the german occupied beaches at a perpendicular angle from north to south. the navy said we don't want the bombers dropping short because they will endanger the ships offshore. the bombardier's added another fudge factor, a long story short, most of the bombs fell

1.5 to three miles behind the beaches and, therefore, really did no benefit to the landing troops. >> any of you have traveled to england and how terrible the weather is. try to fly to heathrow is a real obstacle. you may have the tight story about so there really was no perfect day and was just incredible luck. >> d-day was originally scheduled for june 5, and eisenhower agreed the previous dark morning that they would have a 24 hour weather hold, and then after that it was either all or nothing. because the next favorable tides and moonphase were about three weeks downstream. >> don't you think it's amazing to think they kept that a secret? in the same way the oak ridge or los alamos remained basically a secret during the war? think about that now. i find it fascinating and will get to do such as the payment.

i pick up other people i found passing. john ford, a big entry. why? john ford was a navy groupie, and even though his prewar fame as a movie director had nothing to do with naval subjects. as i recall he was born in maine and grew up on the rockbound coast. so salt water was in his veins early on. and when world war ii started, he basically not on the navy's door and said, here i am, make use of me. he was given a direct commission i think as a lieutenant commander with a film crew, and he had visiting privileges almost anywhere. there's a little-known but superb color documentary that his crew made right after the battle of midway in june of 1942

1942. and he's well-known for that documentary, but less well known is the fact that his film crew was aboard navy and coast guard ships off normandy, and some of the combat footage we see in the tv documentaries were shot by his cameramen. >> it's obvious when you think about it but i was fascinated to see them in debt. a british person, simon fraser, lord love a. he is one of those high land warriors, lucky him that there was a war because he was a man born to fight. >> absolutely he was. he was a senior commando in the british armed forces. born and bred in the scottish highlands, and if there hadn't been a war he would've found a way to start one. he's one of these, as you say, a natural born warrior whose life would've been wasted in any

other endeavor. and even though he was severely wounded during the normandy campaign, and he received the last rites in anticipation of death, he told a subordinate later on, the water is not over, laddie. so got back in the combat before the war ended. >> he was also lucky penicillin had been developed because he probably wouldn't survive if those wounds. it was fortunate that technology caught up with it. to talk about lots of other features, patents and from and so forth but there's a couple other, four or five politician we should briefly mention. charles de gaulle who has always been controversial among the allies, but you give him a pretty good rating. >> he was a progressive military theorist before world war ii but he had spent most of world war i as a prisoner of the germans, but between the wars he became france's leading advocate of tank warfare.

consequently, his seniority was such that when france fell in june of 1940, de gaulle evacuated to britain with tens of thousands of other free french. and he became a significant factor in allied planning. and i think the most wonderful statement made about him was from winston churchill who said, the greatest cross i must bear is the cross of mulling. >> somebody had to be running the french government so when the germans were pushed back and kicked out they could actually function. it was a vacuum at that point you're so the goal was able to do that. pashtun de gaulle was able to do the. most of us know about churchill bubut you talk about him to stan you don't because he wasn't a figure in d-day. this book is about d-day. >> correct. >> i thought you said something

about franklin was a that i've often thought. there's a lot of medical theories about, if this person or this illness hadn't gone on, that history would have been different. if napoleon hadn't suffered from hemorrhoids, he might not have lost at waterloo they couldn't sit on his force. fdr come in your judgment in this book, should not have run for a fourth term. >> correct. he was done. he was a dying man. >> if you look at the films, especially from the conference about what, maybe six weeks before he died, that's a dying man, and it really should have stepped down. ..

he learned from the treaty of versailles. they did not have a punishing treaty. all of that stuff. isabel has such contempt for it. it would've been fascinating to be the proverbial fly on the wall. truman was inaugurated when i assume it was general marshall, the chief of staff. mr. president, there is something you need to know about what is going on it to mexico. >> hitler come you make some good points for him being a politician. of course none of us give him points for being a great human being, but a question i have always wondered and i think the

same thing about napoleon. why? why couldn't they just take the europe? and be happy with that. maybe that's not part of the personality like that. >> apparently it is not. the one thing that napoleon and hitler have in common with they could do their own pr. they were drinking the kool-aid. >> the great captives of history typically overreach themselves. they are a victim of their own success. >> i think that is true. you get a lot of face to the various armed or says, the american british and the german which i thought was fascinating. you talk about the weaponry, the kind of players in the cargo gods than you give credit to two american gun designers. mr. browning. i'm sorry to outnumber the other

one. >> mr. durell. was born a canadian, became a u.s. citizen and he was an employee of the u.s. army ordnance surveys. and he spent about 12 years or so deciding what became the one semi automatic rifle that meant the u.s. armed forces were the only ones in the second world war entirely equipped with a semi automatic rifle. so that made a big difference. a man, john m. browning made it more genius of a utah mormon said designed and held the patents on almost every automatic weapon that the united states used in the second world war from the browning automatic rifle, the heavy machine guns

and the fabulous 1911 pistol that was to the service for 75 years and still the station today. hearsay to america. >> a guy who designs the landing draft. i thought that was fascinating. >> years a success story and established in new orleans. he anticipated before the navy they need for mass-produced landing in event of not a war, but the next water. generically called the higgins boat was actually the landing craft vehicle in personnel. it made possible amphibious operations in every theater of action. >> i thought that was directed.

you finally cleared up from the various things with the kinds of airplanes used. we all know about there be 47, the workers armor, b-17. but i had not realized that the douglas aircraft, what you call the skytrain, was it the sea 47, became basically a passenger plane that they manage to turn into a personnel carrier, airborne personnel carrier. >> it was the revolutionary douglas d.c. three airliner from the mid-to-late 1930s and the army air corps recognized that this has tremendous potential, not only sa =tranfour and a cargo airplane, but it can deliver. troops. he could not have conducted the normandy campaign as we did without c. 47. >> correct. >> even though we won the war in

the atlantic in 1943. >> the turning point in the battle at the atlantic came in may of 19431 if you look at the chart, the number of sinking of merchant vessels that were taking supplies to britain, to build up to d-day fell below the number of german submarines. so essentially, the battle of the atlantic was 13 months before d-day. >> in fact, the theme of the book as the germans were better equipped than probably better strategy, better training, everything else, but there just weren't enough of them with they developed a worldwide fear. several times in the books you say they just didn't have enough. so basically as long as everything didn't alter them, a war of attrition was going to

win. >> they did not have the sustainability of the allies did. >> deception. you have a faction to convince the germans the landing would not be in normandy where it was in omaha and the other beaches. >> there was a lengthy complex plan called bodyguard of lies, which is the definitive book on the subject. there was a multitiered plan to deceive the germans that the landings would take place in the product a, which if you look at the map is the logical crossing point. if nearly 25 miles across the channel. we had turned from german intelligence agents and caught

them, made them an offer they couldn't refuse. either you feed false information to your masters in germany or you have a date with 12 gentlemen with rio three rifles. that combined with signals intelligence, sending false information that we knew the germans would intercept and decode. george patton was a big part of the deception because he was given command of a nonexistent army, an organization of probably eight or 10 divisions. that is why she was so visible throughout britain in the days leading up to overlords so that the germans would keep focused on him. his appearances coincided, so it seems, with the planned landings and methodical way. >> he didn't mention it, but do then if you watch the three

wrote a great james bond novel was who's also an extremely fact that agent allies because of his action ability. an address in uniform and put information on it and floated off. you didn't mention it. i didn't know if that was true or apocryphal. >> it wasn't in the book. >> if you see the germans as to read the sicily landings. >> at the sicily, not germany quite >> a wonderful concept. he was probably a british sailor in the royal marine major's

uniform with a briefcase. >> the spanish undercovered wreckage. and of course immediately told the germans, look what we have and that deceives them must do for the landings would occur. >> and not very named james parvin has written wonderful books starting with early boil about a shirttail relative to eisenhower. he shows up in office theaters and in his most recent book, he is in england right before operation overlord launches. he writes about one of the screw ups. you talk about he said at one point when they were doing a training exercise on the beach because it kind of mirrored some of the beaches when they were training there that the british

navy got their signals crossed and actually wiped out a bunch of people. >> i was operation tiger, which was a dress rehearsal for some of the american forces in normandy. they had a classic torpedo boats they called schnell boughton, which we called them he boats. i think two of the german torpedo boats penetrated the practice landing area at night in torpedo to have the three american ships with heavy loss of life. i think about 400 americans were killed in operation tiger therefore became classified until the end of the war and it's interesting to watch the revelations because about every 10 to 12 years somebody discovers the cover-up and says look what happened.

actually, it has been known since about the late 40s. >> what other operations? overboard with the name of the whole thing. then there was operation network. sort of the obvious, right? >> the full name of the whole operation was neptune/overboard. of course you can't have an amphibious operation without a naval aspect and neptune as i explained in the encyclopedia involved ships from about five allied nations. not just the u.s. and britain, that canada, which has the third-largest navy in world war ii. and then the individual ships in poland. so it really was multinational. >> i will say you achieved a wonderful balance even though you are currently an aviation junkie. there's a lot in here about the navy and the army. he took great space for the air

force and then the royal canadian air force. anyways, it's absolutely fascinating. >> a-alpha, b-bravo, whatever, charlie. do you have a chart that was a u.s. version. >> the british version. >> in the german version. i thought the choice of names was really fun. sometimes they were the same like eating and keying. but the german ones -- >> the journals were on time, bruno, feature, doro. in fact, they even have a word that eludes me -- >> there is a thriller out called whiskey tango foxtrot. those are three of the code words in the british side of it.

so there's a lot you can learn from this book that i found completely fascinating. i marked a couple of things. you've got all kinds of extra stuff in here like d-day movies in the d-day museum and the fact they didn't destroy the tapestry, even though they might well have because of the headquarters and so forth. the other thing i saved was your entry on john ford, which we've are talked about in which i love. he got a presidential medal of freedom. i was reading "the new york times" i have been to see that "the new york times" does not make a great bookmark. so the other operation i forgot to mention and then we will move on his operation cobra. >> that was the overall allied plan to break out from the normandy bridge. highly complex evolution because

it required the british and the americans to court made not only the ground forces, but the airpower and was also intended to blast through the german fortified areas in land or normandy. if that was big success as i explain in the encyclopedia. again, well-intentioned heavy bombers did not have well-defined endpoints and a lot of their bombs fell short and killed or wounded several hundred americans, in looting lieutenant general mcnair who was the overall commander of all american ground forces in europe and he was the senior american general killed in world war ii by friendly fire. >> yeah, snafu. it's also a section in here about acronyms, certainly applies. the real surprising and when you get finished reading this is how

we ever actually brought it off considering the possibility for snafus. the breaks that folks were for and against on both sides. it does take a certain amount of luck, no matter how great everything else is. >> there is a saying in literary circles that i'd rather be lucky than bad. you d-day is a great plan relating to matter how great your plans are, at the last minute you have to make it up. we've learned that every day here. you have to embrace chaos in its certainly true to do that. it is a fascinating book. i wouldn't call it bathroom reading. it really is the sort of thing that you can dip in and dip out of and really i think enjoy. so encyclopedias sounds put off a shot on the bed now because you've got an amazing thing between july of 2013 in july of

2014, you actually brought out three books, especially complicated nonfiction. >> crazy probably. although i will plead extenuating circumstances because totally beyond my control, the two publishers involved in these three books happen to bring them out, that is release them on the street between early may and the end of june. so back off a few months and you start i can appreciate this. imagine going cross i trying to proofread three galleys simultaneously. i don't know how i made it through. fortunately i was able to. >> i think it was easier that if you weren't in fiction, every made up would be different if you are trying to do three books at once. you are working basically the

same university hard to remember where your focus was. >> which focuses today? >> the u.s. marine corps fighter squadron of world war ii is much more your love of aviation because you are focused on the leathernecks. one thing we learned in the d-day encyclopedia is that the marines got a huge amount of worry in world war i that were known as the devil dogs, a term i've heard. but anyway, it really created a lot of jealousy and political turmoil with the army. it were too anxious. they had the marines involved in the european theater. >> the world war i generation of army officers almost without exception ,-com,-com ma macarthur being a notable example quarterly detested the marine corps.

i used to know admiral tom waller or retired as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and he had even a brief even the pentagon in early 1944 suggesting that marine fighter bomber squadrons based on escort carriers in the channel in the north sea with a brand-new precision were ideal for destroying german guys. said he merely got started when the will not reveal what we were up. so that is why john wayne made about the specific consent of the atlantic. >> you do underline the importance of politics in the encyclopedia. so here we are in the pacific theater in your book recognizes 120 marine corps fighting aces.

so you explain it. >> i tradition dating from world war i, a flying ace comes to be actually with the flying ace. it is a combat aviator, usually a fighter pilot who is credited with shooting down at least five enemy aircraft. one of the reasons i wrote this book aside from the fact it had never been done before and there was a gap in the market is that in researching and writing so many of the other books, i got to know so many of these wonderful colorful characters personally in the main exhibit of course was joe foss, who is a longtime scottsdale resident here. despite all the hype about the black sheep -- despite all the hype in that direction, joe foss was and is the marine corps

fighter pilot of all time because all of his victories were scored as a marine whereas some of those are with the flying tigers in china and burma. i have to tell a story about joe. wonderful human being. one of the most gracious, genuine people i ever had the pleasure of knowing. and a christian gentleman. he was an evangelist. he would go anywhere to speak about his faith. but beneath that ev angeles, he was also a dedicated, devoted marine corps combat aviator and that meant highly competitive. joe used to joke and say he was so competitive that he had a hard time putting his grandchildren win at go fish. >> how many of the marine corps aces live down -- there were some who lived on to fight in korea here there is what one or more of the non?

>> there were no marine corps is in vietnam. the one marine corps and the korean war have been one of the black sheep. his name was jack bianchi flew regular to wear in korea with the marine corps squadron and then another one of these dedicated warriors who lived for combat. he was selected to fly an exchange tour with the air force near the end of the war and he shut down six communists made 15 jet fighters, so the marine cores only two were ace. >> marines for obviously great at invidious assaults. the headquarters were primarily in quantico and san diego. >> yes. that was before the war. the marine corps aviation structure at that time was one

east coast, one west coast and each of them detachments either to the virgin islands or other places in the caribbean are out to hawaii. but at the time of pearl harbor, i think there were only about a dozen marine corps squadrons and as a comparison, the appendix in this book lists all 50 marine corps fighter squadrons that served outside the united states during world war ii. so there is tremendous expansion. >> what if they fly? i actually voted down. what is the rooster buffalo? >> the brewster f2 way was a prewar fighter, fairly significant enabling the haitian history. it went operational in 1939 as the navy and marine corps aviation's first monoplane fighter is opposed to the two wing biplanes previously. it's only combat in american

surveys was a disaster situation at the battle of midway in june 1942. fortunately, the airplane with a much more successful wildcat remains the marine corps' primary fighter well into 1943. in the overall study i include about marine corps fighter operations in world war ii remain focused there was the guadalcanal campaign which lasted for six months and 42, 43 and that is where you see the big-name starting to emerge. joe foss, malay friend marion carr, john l. smith who were extremely successful with the wildcat, even though it was technically inferior to the japanese fighters. >> the f6 hellcat in the seven tiger cat. >> in the air which became the iconic airplane of world war ii. >> which was made by god.

to finish up here, pearl harbor had no real chance for anybody to act. the marines actually propelled the first attempt? is that right? and then there wasn't enough of them or whatever. but midway, that battle was the turning point where the japanese , they're a lot less advance was stopped. as you say, guadalcanal was really the long-sought and then they moved on to okinawa and the philippines. so based upon this whole book, what is your assessment of the decision to drop the bomb? didn't really save lives quick >> yes come it did hear several years ago is touring the national air and space museum in washington d.c. and maryland restoration facility and i became aware that there was a group of japanese tourists going or what. one of them was a doctor fluent

in english. i got talking to him about the decisions to drop the bombs. he said it was terrible. people died for years thereafter ensure shema and not a sake due to radiation poisoning. the invasion of japan that was planned for november 1945 would have been horrific. in researching the previous book, whirlwind, all air operations over japan i found interrogations with japanese civil military and diplomatic officials in the strategic bombing survey. they were almost unanimous in the statement that millions of japanese would have died trying to repoll. >> not to mention many millions of allies. "the new york times" recently

commented on the release of papers about emperor hirohito who was kind of hidden as a puppet. it really wasn't his fault. he set in fact he was far more active than is generally thought to be true. he was the stubborn one after hiroshima refused to surrender when in fact he could have been led to the bombing is not a sake. i have been to both places and here's an interesting fact i will finish up on. hiroshima was completely flat. not only did everybody get radiation poisoning, but the whole city was destroyed. not a sake has been kind of a canyon. almost if you are in los alamos are not sort of thing. so when they dropped the bomb, which was an alternate target coming back to the comment about d-day that the letter weather was so bad, there was another city that was supposed to be the

target of the cloud cover was terrible. when they dropped the bomb, the radiation poison killed people. but it hardly damaged the city at all because the geography and geometry was the blast would didn't wipe out all of the oldest doric buildings. you can visit them. they are still there. unless he goes there, that is not the sort of thing you would really know. i found that to be fascinating and having to talk to people in japan. the people would have been so much greater. but they are now gradually realizing, okay, they could've spared the second bottom. >> an excellent opportunity much earlier in early march of 1945 good to be 29 from islands under

curtis lemay level 16 in tokyo overnight and killed at least 85,000 people. the next morning, here are tito got in his limousine and tour the city, saw what he saw, smelled what he had to smell and decided we are not going to surrender. imagine if written nor the united states had suffered 85,000 people died overnight, what overnight, would we still want to continue the war? i'm not sure. >> these are questions we can't answer just like why did russia which is what i find interesting. the u.s. marine corps fighter squadrons of world war ii was published by osprey and the final book we are going to do and jeff and i will look at the forgotten to team, which is also published. first, does anyone have any questions they would like to ask about what we just discussed?

>> its enemies make here. is there anything you would like to ask about anything with us about so far? >> at the start you mentioned dolittle. you mentioned doolittle. no doolittle raised airplanes before world war ii. how popular was even? >> he was a rock star and aviation. ..

>> how significant would you consider a deception campaign prior to the day leading to the success of the? >> it was extremely significant. i don't know that it made the difference between winning and losing, simply because of the huge numerical disparity between the allies and the germans. but what it did was cause hitler and his general staff to hold back the reinforcements that were well inland. they were centrally positioned so that they could reinforce either enormity. that uncertainty as to where the landings would occur brought -- bought the allies extra time once the troops were sure. >> i have one more.

>> talking about naval aviation, marine corps, the navy flight, was there any pilots that got their start in the biplane and went on to be qualified in the super fighters of the 60? >> absolutely. i've often said whatever you make of the conventional wisdom of the greatest generation of americans being world war ii, definitely the greatest generation of aviators was that world war ii period. because they started flying an open pit biplanes, in trainers doing 80 to 90 knots and those who stay for 20 to 25 your careers finish line mach ii jets. that type of progress simply is not possible anymore. >> spent i think my next question -- i will hold off. >> well, i that note we are

going to change over to the "forgotten fifteenth" and switch to a different theater. there's little overlap but i guess one of things that was interesting about this book and the fear of the war rings to mind that old thing that amateurs doing strategy, professionals doing logistics. let's start with the beginning of the book, because the book begins with this obsolete captivating little narrative description of the planes. would you like to describe it a little bit? >> i wanted to set the stage in the prologue showing the readers a typical bombing mission flown from italy in the mediterranean theater of operations northward either into austria or germany. and bombing taxes factories and petroleum targets -- axis -- north of the outs.

and when you think about it -- alps. it's a rigid dilemma because i've always been fascinated with hannibal and his amazing effort to get elephants across the alps. this is what, fourth century b.c. i believe. and contrast not with the ponderous, 'tis task that most of encouraging a herd of pachyderms up narrow, rocky, craggy mountain trails sometimes breaking trails themselves, fast forward to the first part of the 20th century where fleets of hundreds of multi-engine bombers five miles high our streaming cockney contrails through the chilly upper atmosphere. that contrast appealed to me so that's what i started the book as i did. >> it made me wonder if perhaps

asked patton for directions can the reincarnation of hannibal. by his own statement. another interesting light they shed on the war was the aspect of petroleum as one of the central issues of the conflict. can you talk about that in the book. can you explore the and the importance of its? >> certainly. the reason the 15th u.s. army air force was established in november 1943 was that the allied combined chiefs in london and then the u.s. chiefs of staff in d.c. recognized in order to defeat germany, it was going to be essential to turn off the oil taps. and about one-third of nazi germany's petroleum came from romania come specifically at 10 or 11 refineries around the

35 miles north of bucharest. if you look at a map of europe and draw the line, you see that from london, south east, about 1300 statute miles, and all of that was over german occupied europe. so there's simply no way for british base bombers to reach those targets. consequently, the 15th air force was established by jimmy doolittle in november 1943, and job one on its list of things to do was to prevent the romanians and the germans from continuing to produce, not only raw oil and other between products, but especially refined high often gasoline. it turned into a four or five month campaign in early 1944. it caused the 15th air force approximately 250 airplanes, but

it turned off almost all of the oil, and then later that month the russians invaded and took over the area anyway. so oil was job one. and after that was accomplished the 15th and could concentrate on other nations such as synthetic refineries throughout southern europe, railroad and other transportation targets. so it was a multifaceted strategic air campaign conducted north and south by the eighth air force and the british air force in britain and the 15th air force base in italy. >> there's so many amazing stories in this book. there's no way we can hope to capture them all, so we will just have hit a few of the highlights. let's turn aside real quick, i know you talk about them a little bit, but the general

jimmy who i believe you got to know personally. he seems like an amazing character. he covered the rate already to tokyo, but that he set up the 15th in a two-month period, did an amazing job that he would actually fly in combat during the war. >> yesterday. of course, he began flying combat with his famous carrier launch rate of 16 army bombers on the tokyo urban area in april of 1942. that meant not only a medal of honor body double promotion from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general. and i was fortunate in getting to know me because i was hacked by the los angeles area chamber of commerce to write the program for his 80th birthday in 1976. we just hit it off and we established a friendship come

kept in touch. and general jimmy's attitude was that if he's going to command and air force, he damn well was going to learn to fly every airplane in that air force. and one of his fighter units had purchased it fires in north africa, and he was caught red-handed by eisenhower climbing out of a spit fire with a brigadier general star on his shoulder. eisenhower said, general doolittle, any second lieutenant can fly a fighter plane to do you want to five different fly fighter planes or do you want to run my air? the implication being you can do one but not both. doolittle said yes, sir i will run your air and probably forgot he led that an led the first bombing mission. >> let's take just a moment to explore what was a pretty powerful divide at the time between air mentality and army mentality of a stored as a rocky

relationship between doolittle and eisenhower. >> correct. dolittle advise our first served together in north africa where i said i was in a three-star and the senior american grand -- ground commander in the theater. understand that eisenhower was a west pointer, class of 1915. not to put too fine a point on it, he was a west point snob. he didn't have the appreciation of a mirror reserve officer to keep hidden where the west point ring. it's surprising, because eisenhower obviously was intelligent and he was a capable leader and administrator or so what makes you wonder what was it about his professional military education that led him to denigrate to a certain extent reserve officers. but doolittle, as i quote in the book, wrote to his wife in late

1943, i guess i finally sold myself to general eisenhower because i'm going to command the 15th air force. eisenhower did not necessarily have a veto on that decision because he was in the process of moving up to england to establish the supreme allied headquarters there, but he certainly demonstrated his acceptance of doolittle two months after doolittle established the 15th air force, and requested him to run the eighth air force for the rest of the war. >> and let's talk just a minute about doolittle's replacement who was another really interesting guy, especially, any, another guy with just an amazing story. >> nathan was from an old, old american military family. they had almost i think an unbroken line of service in the u.s. army or navy dating from the revolution.

in fact, he nathan twinings was i believe named for an uncle who was an admiral and his brother was a marine corps general. so the military was in their dna. and he had previous combat experience in the pacific command in the 13th air force and he was tapped by general arnold, the chief of all the army air forces in washington to transfer from the pacific to italy and take over the 15th force in january of 44. >> anti-was shot down and spent six days at sea. >> he wasn't shot down. he was on a bomber that got lost and ran out of fuel. he survived that ordeal and emerged from it stronger than ever. >> and one of the local note. wasn't he on the force i was

hunting poncho via early? >> yes, he was. at the point in 1916 he was still in national guard and. he went to west point thereafter and he was on general pershing's punitive expedition into mexico for a few weeks in 1916. spent and let's return now to the war again. one of things that struck me about the book was a very steep learning curve and just the incredibly stiff resistance and high attrition rate that they extremes, especially, especially early but throughout the war. talk a little bit about that. >> well, just a really short course in prewar army air force doctrine. the air corps tactical school generated plans and doctrines that were disseminated throughout the army. they came up with the concept of

the self defending bomber, a four engine, high altitude bomber with heavy machine gun armament that was supposed to be able to fend off in the interceptors without the use of friendly fire escorts. that was the tail, that was an example of a technical tail because while into world war ii we had no long range escort fighters. and that concept of the self defending bomber came up against reality over northern europe with the eighth air force in 1942-43, and the attrition was such that in late 43 and was statistically impossible for a bomber crew to finish at 25 nation tour because the average attrition per mission was 4%. and you don't need to be a math whiz to figure 25 times for. so the eventual arrival in late

43, early 44 of long range fighters, especially the 51 mustang, made possible the continued strategic daylight bombing campaign. and contrast to the pressure flew almost entirely at night. >> they showed amazing perseverance in the face of that. there were a few incidences of just amazing heroism. maybe you could describe a couple of those. >> the best examples undoubtedly part two, 15th air force recipients of the medal of honor. and they were both posthumous. both involve missions to or near plastic in the summer of 1944. a bombardier from my home state, oregon, lieutenant david kingsley, tended a badly wounded

gunner and had to take off his parachute harness and order to apply first aid. and that harness disappeared in the confusion and the damage to the airplane was badly shot up. so kingsley made a conscious decision commitments to think about it, he took off his parachute harness, put it on the wounded sergeant, slipped on his chest that parachute and pushed about the bomb pushed about the bombay so he could pull the rip cord. and david kingsley road that bomber to his death, knowing what was coming. so if there's a better definition of above and beyond the call of duty, i don't know what it is. the other was a b-24 pilot whose airplane was mortally damaged, and he had about three crew members who were either wounded or unwilling to bailout, and he stayed with it trying to make a crash landing and almost got down safely, but a wing tip

snapped on the hill and airplane cartwheeled. that was donald puckett who also received a posthumous medal of honor. >> turn to a much lighter note. one of, there's a lot of really funny stuff in the book but one thing i found particularly amusing was when the men would get a new bomber. i forget which of the bombers, searching for hidden messages, perhaps you could describe that a little. >> we've heard a lot about rosie the riveter, the generic description of female production workers who are not limited to building airplanes. they were building ships, vehicles, everything. but after a little while, the mechanics assembled and disassembled new are writing aircraft in a theater of operation learned that if they looked on a certain panel, behind the instrument panel, they could frequently find

penciled messages from rosie the riveter's with name, address, phone number, give me a call, soldier. and if they were especially thorough, they listed their brawl size. [laughter] >> many letters you couldn't confirm, marriages resulted. >> definitely corresponded to whether there were any permanent hookups remains for investigation. >> i think we're starting to run down on time. before we run out of like to give you a chance to talk about some of the personalities on the other side of the war. it was an intense conflict on both sides and it was very interesting and i like that you did explore the site and put more of a human face. rachet talk about some of the more enduring characters, i know there's a few decent europeans and then also the italians, sort of style itself.

>> real briefly about the italians. a lot of people don't realize that italy was on both sides simultaneously in world war ii. because after mussolini was overthrown in 1943, subsequently he was rescued in a daring commando raid, the northern portion of italy remained in axis hands until the end of the war. but there was a group of italian fighter pilot, one or two squadrons, who decided to side with the allies when they flew their fighters into a t-38 base and climbed up, lined up and reported for duty. they were wearing what the military calls their class a uniforms, which is tasked with a little plum, capes and white gloves. at how else would a gentleman appeared when joining the newly established italian air force? two of my favorite characters on the axis side were a luftwaffe

colonel was a superb athlete. he won the gold medal for the military and avalon at the olympics in berlin in 1936. but by the time the 15th air force was established, he was commanding the air defense sector around vienna. vienna was the hardest target the 15th had. they lost something over 300 airplanes either over vienna or in that area. so he was an extremely capable air commander, and the personal connection i have is that i used to know his friend and rival, general charles leonard who retired from u.s. army as a two star, and they became friends in berlin during the 1936 olympics. because charlie leonard got the

silver medal. and afterwards, the leonard family sent food and clothing to the family in germany until they could get back on their feet. and then my absolute favorite character in the entire book is a t.i.d.e. list individual, prince constantine. he was romanian royalty. one of these rare people who excelled at everything he did. matinee movie idol, good looks, rockstar charisma. and there was nothing that interested him that he didn't extremely well. he was captain of the romanian hockey team. he was a national champions aerobatic stunt pilot. he was a champion motorcycle and automobile racer. and to him, aerial combat was the ultimate sport and he was extremely good at that competition.

because he shut down something over 40 soviet and american aircraft. but once romania capitulated, he realized that the american prisoners being held in romania were likely to be liberated by the soviets, and he didn't trust the russians released the americans. and as we now know, many americans were not released in the soviets. so constantin cantacuzino stuck an american senior pow in the fuselage of the smasher smit with a crudely painted american flag on the fuselage and flow down to the 15th air force headquarters. and in about two days arranged a massive airlift to fly bombers up to the bucharest area unloaded the pows aboard and take them back to freedom in italy.

and he made the mistake of letting an american fighter pilot fly his measure schmidt and wrapped it in a ball. so in order to guide the relief force, constantin cantacuzino needed an american airplane. the only american airplanes available was a p. 51 mustang and the only ones of those heatsink were in his gunsight a few weeks before. but he was one of these natural born pilots who said show me the tabs, in other words, how to start the thing to keep it off, put on a world-class aerobatic demonstration, led instead i'm ready, let's go. so he was just a tremendous character. he was married four times. one of his wives divorced him, married a british gentleman named gray, and their daughter is best known as linda gray defense of the dallas tv series. so i don't know if she ever met

her mother's previous a number rob, but it's a remarkable situation. >> welcome i think that's all we have time for. there's so many more wonderful and fascinating episode in the book. do we have time for a few more questions? we have a few more questions. >> i have a microphone. i know you have one. but to be fair, is there someone else would like to ask the question first? okay. back to you 10. >> i have a personal question. you mentioned it flowed over 500 hours of there is military aircraft and remodeled some, and that kind of thing. did you have a favorite, and if so, why? >> yeah, my favorite was a dive bomber that my dad and i am friends and family restored in

the early 1970s. we acquired it from portland, oregon, which have been using it as a modified to spray plane to control mosquitoes. it got too expensive to operate. so we acquired the airplane. and at that time it was the only flying example of an fcb scout bomber by douglas in the world. now i think there are two or three. in the course of researching that airplane, i realized almost nothing had been written about it, although is arguably the most important, the most significant american aircraft in the first year of the war after pearl harbor because he got his victories at midway in guadalcanal. one of my favorite pictures is that they took from another airplane of my dad line that airplane. it's a close-up shot of him, and that was dad's favorite, too,

and he was on the wall over his bed when he died early this year. so that became the subject of my first book, and it remains my sentimental favorite. >> i see in your book you mentioned a lady be good, but the 24 that crashed. i remember as a child my dad, you know, he knew russia a new movie outcom out, both survive e never years later to find out that was a two-story. do you know what happened to that airplane? did they just scrap it? >> no. it was not a 15th air force airplane. it was, it went down in the north african desert shortly before the 15th was established. but navigational error, the crew flew hundreds of miles south from the african coast, ran out of fuel, landed in the desert.

the airplane -- i think it was found in 1958 and was eventually brought back to the united states for display at an air force museum. >> so it's still somewhere then? >> i imagine it is that the air force museum. >> okay. >> thank you, sir. thank you all very much for coming. and i'd like to say, i mentioned to you james has written some wonderful books on these topics, but alan in many ways is the go to for serious theaters of world war ii. i can member the but is a really brilliant about about romania and the value of the romanian oilfields. he also writes about hungary. is everywhere. if you really want a broad-based picture of world war ii. however, if you want factual stuff, you can hardly get any

better than turn one. so thank you so much. we could listen for hours more but thank you for coming. [applause] >> if you'd like your book signed, you can bring your books of. into so much for coming. >> and thank you for hosting me. [inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on facebook. like is to get publishing news, scheduled updates, behind the scenes pictures and videos. author information and to talk directly with authors doing our live programs. facebook.com/booktv. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> and no booktv on christmas day. you're awesome programs to watch.

for more information on our 2424 hour holiday television schedule, visit us online at booktv.org. >> tell me how you came to write about him. >> okay. he was a journalist, his fate was during the 1920s. he was from baltimore, wrote for the "baltimore sun" papers. i came across him, very strange but true story. i was a freshman in college and i was busy writing an article about his wife who went to the

same college. and i was in the rare book room putting one of her poems away on the shelf, i literally tripped over a box and take to the top of the box, in essence it's a do not open into 1981, signed h.l. mencken. and the year was 1981 it goes two weeks wait for my graduation, that set me on a totally different path but i was going to write, get another boring thesis on t.s. eliot and this led me on mencken. this is now my six and probably last book on mencken. >> what do you most admire about him? >> i admire his use of language, his common sense, his courage. he took on many subjects which people were not writing about in those days come as early as 1917. he was writing against a lynching. he was -- that was a subject, civil rights was a big issue